Tonight we have a smaller crew as both Grace and Thalen were unavailable, but we still manage to record a full show. For weeks ahead of the launch of Star Wars Episode VII - Force Awakens we talked about this show being our discussion of Star Wars. However... since there are already so many spoilers floating around the internet, we did not want to add to the volume. We still absolutely talk Star Wars but we do so in a way where we discuss our feelings and impressions... and not any details of the plot. So you can listen to the show and feel confident that you won't get anything spoiled.

We also delve into this mission that Tam has been on lately, where he is trying to come up with a definitive list of the most influential game titles. He has created a rubric with which to judge games, and has been delving into every game that has essentially ever been reviewed. This is in fact a path to madness, but it is one I will cheerfully wave at Tam while he goes down. This ends up being an interesting discussion about what makes a game influential.

In the grand scheme of things we have performed a number of experiments over the last few months. Shifting the format from roundtable to a largely topic based format seems to have largely been appreciated. Tonight we perform yet another experiment and create what I think will ultimately end up being dubbed the “Super Show”. The fact that we record every single week with six people… is a bit of a crazy thing in itself, but this evening we are recording with eight… and had everyone been here it would have been a show of ten. Now juggling that many people in our normal format would end up with an insanely long show.

Instead we decided to shift focus a bit and pick a single large topic. So for this week we are doing the “Villians” show that we talked about in the last episode. Since this is a huge topic, and ends up getting split off in a bunch of different directions we left the floor completely open. We talked about favorite villians, favorite kind of fights, personalities that we love to hate and some of the problems currently plaguing video games. Ashgar unfortunately had a really bad week and was unable to attend, but we managed to bring back the always awesome Nephsys, as well as including a couple of first time AggroChatters… InkyBrushes and Pizzamaid. It is my hope that we will do more of these in the future as we come up with sufficiently “big topics” and end up recording another super sized show.

This week we return to the whole topic driven focus, because honestly they seem to work better. We had several topics we wanted to discuss but for the sake of time we pushed a few of them off to another episode. Once again we have the full cast of Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen.

The topics we delve into...

Rocket League - how we are apparently late to the party, and any time a game is getting played at the same time by wildly different groups of gamers... it should be checked out.

Space Chem - how Kodra falls into a deep hole of trying to create the most perfect engine in this video game that plays more like a really good board game... and also at times a programming simulator.

Otome Games - we talk about how our podcast got mentioned recently by Pizza Maid and Suishi Geisha... and how it would be awesome if the games we liked to play had the same level of story fidelity that Otome games do. This spawned an entire side discussion about story drive games in general.

Co-Opetitive Games - the games where you are playing co-operatively but also at the same time competing with your friends.... also fertile ground for losing said friendships.

Sandbox Games - We talk about the wall that happens in most sandbox experiences where we as players are just "done" with the game long before we have technically completed all of it.

This week was originally going to be our Fallout 4 halfway point show, however we realized that neither Ashgar nor Belghast have even touched the main storyline. While Ashgar has the excuse of travel... Bel is nearly level 20 and still has yet to go to Diamond City. So instead we opted to do an old fashioned roundtable show, where we talk about what everyone has been playing.

This week we have a bit of a change in the show. When we started compiling the list of what we wanted to talk about, it turned out that for the most part they were broader subjects rather than individual game specific ones. As a result we ended up pushing aside talking about specific games because in those four topics we felt like we had more than a shows worth. The end result was us talking about "things" for an hour and a half and I think one of the more interesting shows we have recorded to date.

We talk about raiding, and get nostalgic about point and click adventure games. Additionally there has been one game that all of us have been playing this week... and even though it is the game of the month there is no way we could stop from talking about it as well. That's right we start digging into Fallout 4 and all of the different ways we have been playing it. We are keeping it largely spoiler free and talking more about the mechanics and exploration of the game.

This week we have Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra and Tamrielo with Thalen once again travelling. Over the course of the week we had a discussion about an Extra Credits video calling Destiny the Law and Order of gaming. This spawned a further discussion about what ended up getting termed as "Junk Food Gaming", aka those gaming experiences that you play because they are enjoyable but also don't require much thought for you to consume. This week we spawn a continuance of this discussion, and we find out why Tam is not on board with this concept. Additionally we have a lengthy discussion about all of the latest announcements from BlizzCon and several other subjects. Things we talked about...

This month marks our ninth AggroChat game club title, and we have officially gone full circle looping back around to Belghast. He chose a deeply nostalgic title that draws in the feelings of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Secrets of Mana and wraps them up in a modern package. Secrets of Grindea is a charming early access title, and it marks quite possibly one of the more positively reviewed games we have done in this time. The only real complaints that we had... was that there wasn't more of it yet. So join us as we talk through out thoughts about the game, and also queue up the November/December game of the month... Fallout 4.

This week we continue our adventure into this new topic focused format, this time with the full AggroChat crew. The big topic of the night we take on which is not specifically a single game... is limited game events like holidays or other expiring content. We dig into the things we like about them and dislike about them, as well as provide some ideas in how to make the concept work better.

This week we are down quite a few from our normal group, but still manage to push on with Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra and Thalen. Since we had a smaller group we decided to use it as a good opportunity to "break the meta" as it were and mix things up a bit. For awhile I have questioned our "what folks are doing" construct because essentially it is just a way for us to get around to talking about some games. This time we jotted down a list of what folks wanted to talk about before the show and loosely followed that. Our listeners will have to let us know which style they like better.

This week we talk about...

AntiChamber

Risk of Rain

Spelunky

1001 Spikes

Minecraft

Creativerse

Star Wars the Old Republic

Star Wars Rebels

Destiny

Rockband

Forced 2 Kickstarter

Gauntlet

Hammerwatch

Please drop us a line to let us know what you think of the format shift and if it is worth keeping.